UK holidays: Web wizardry for wonderful walking weekends

We are all very familiar with the concept of downloading music or books, or even getting films via the internet. Now get ready for downloadable walks. The National Trust, which we associate with traditional pleasures such as cream teas and souvenir shop bags of pot pourri, has stepped into the future with a series of walks around its properties that you can download free of charge from the National Trust website.

Best foot forward: A Bank Holiday weekend is a great time to hit the walking paths of Britain

If you are keen for a little exercise in beautiful surroundings,
these walks are perfect --they are mostly fairly short and they're
generally undemanding.

The National Trust supplied us with their Top Five most downloaded walks and we sent our writers to put them to the test.

Read on to see how they fared...

Bath skyline walk, 6 miles

A good walk should present a physical challenge - but literary quizzes are an unexpected bonus. Halfway around the six-mile Bath Skyline Walk is a memorial bench with a quotation: 'The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.'

There was no clue as to the author. Someone with local connections? Jane Austen? Peter Gabriel? (Gabriel's Solsbury Hill hogs the view for one part of this walk.) A later search on Google quickly revealed the bench's words of wisdom as the work of Confucius. Another Confucius saying - 'It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop' - is a good one for those who enjoy an undemanding stroll.

What puts me off walking as a pastime is that it tends to involve heading deep into the countryside to places seldom visited by 3G phone signals. On the Bath Skyline Walk, you rarely stray more than a mile from the city centre, yet such is Bath's tiny footprint you hardly ever depart from lush countryside. Thanks to the National Trust, Bath residents have the luxury of an unbroken rural skyline to gaze upon.

The walk advises that you start at the university, where you can park your car, and follow the path that begins next to Bath Cats & Dogs Home. From there the path leads to Bathampton Woods, where you can see the tramway used more than 200 years ago for transporting Bath stone down to the canal (the grooves left in the stone by the trams are still visible). Look across the valley to Solsbury Hill from where, according to Peter Gabriel, 'eagles flew out of the night'.

At Bath Golf Club you pass Sham Castle, built in 1762 for businessman Ralph Allen to improve the view from his house in the city. The castle looks huge from the city but is surprisingly small up close.

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Now you drop into the edges of the city centre, crossing Bathwick Hill before heading past delightful Smallcombe Farm. As you climb up to Rainbow Wood there are glorious views of the city. And soon the first distant noises of howling from that RSPCA home tell you that you are nearing the end of the walk. As Confucius might have said, nothing completes a good walk so well as a good drink. Your way back to the city takes you past a number of good pubs, including the White Hart and Ring O Bells.

Bath time: Frank Barrett reaches the top of Bathwick Hill. The city of Bath dominates the view behind him

Clumber Park, 1.5 miles

During the Second World War, Clumber Park, a country estate just south of Worksop in Nottinghamshire,was used as a testing site for new machinery, including the so-called White Rabbit, a device that dug vast trenches and which once had the honour of being inspected by Winston Churchill.

Now Clumber Park is one of the most popular National Trust properties, known for its picturesque walks around a winding lake and through ancient woodland.

There are several suggested walking loops that start at the estate's old stables - sadly, the country house that at one time sat in the park was demolished in 1938 after falling into decline.

I set off on a modest 1.5-mile loop on a sunny yet blustery day. Swans nestled quietly on a lawn and ducks and geese paddled gently in the silvery water of the lake.

On the opposite bank was a mock Roman temple, looking grand, and through an avenue of rhododendrons I came to a solid redstoned chapel with a rocket-like spire.

After marvelling at the chapel's size - it is really more like a church - and taking a look at the Gothic interior where lots of lanterns hung dramatically from the rafters, I made my way along a path into the 18th Century Pleasure Ground. This was a pleasure indeed, with more rhododendrons, vast cedars of Lebanon with skeletal branches, and another little temple, this one in Greek Doric style. There are benches tucked away in quiet spots and families were camped out on lawns between the bushes.

Through a metal gate, I crossed a cow pasture - trying in vain to detect the scars that are said to remain from the White Rabbit - and entered Ash Tree Hill Wood.

The wood was wonderfully tranquil. Birds fluttered and sang. A woodpecker pecked. And I strolled along the springy path between beeches before turning for home, passing a walled kitchen garden and a fine cricket ground with a thatched pavilion on the way back to the stables. It all felt a very long way from Worksop's rows of terrace houses. Clumber makes a terrific day out.

Jolly good folly: The Temple Of Apollo, an ornate folly, sits just off the Stourhead walk

Stourhead, 3 miles

Either the heron was flying extra slowly or I was walking extra fast. I remained just a few yards away from the graceful bird along the entire length of a quiet, green valley.

We must have made an extraordinary sight as we passed an old oak in a field. The bird flew one side of it, I walked around the other.

Someone had used a rope to make a makeshift swing on the tree. Underneath it, newly shorn sheep watched bemused as the heron and I followed a path through the thick grass, heading for some woods.

I noted that the bird took one flap of its huge grey wings for each loping stride of mine. Talk about being perfectly in step with nature. Eventually the heron disappeared over the trees towards the 160ft triangular Georgian folly on the horizon called Alfred's Tower.

It's easy to see why this Wiltshire ramble is one of the National Trust's most popular walks. You may have a close encounter with wildlife, as I did, or just get to enjoy all the best features of the English countryside. There's even a superb old pub, The Spreadeagle, at the starting and finishing point. It serves great food and also has bedand-breakfast accommodation.

The walk is only three miles but there are gorgeous panoramas. You'll see the source of the River Stour (marked by a grand stately monument), discover a pre-Roman hill fort and witness Stourhead House, a magnificent Palladian mansion. The route leads through two lush green valleys and deciduous and evergreen woods carpeted with wild flowers.

I heard hawks shrieking in the distance and spotted old English favourites such as wild honeysuckle, goose-grass (also called stickywilly) and sweet chestnuts. The path is clear and well maintained, but the slopes to the hill fort are moderately steep. This meant the walk took longer than expected - allow a couple of hours at least. And I was glad I wore walking boots because parts of the trail were very muddy.

The route skirts Stourhead House and Gardens, but unless you're a National Trust member you'll have to pay to get in. The walk, however, is free.

For information about The Spreadeagle visit www.spreadeagleinn.com or call 01747 840587.

Simon Heptinstall

Grace and favour: The 300-year-old Calke Abbey is a haven for wildlife

Calke Abbey, 1.5 miles

Directly above us, the avian equal of an Olympic athlete zips away at warp speed. This has to be a hobby. Long pointed wings? Tick. Reminiscent of a giant swift? Quite so. Dashing flight, accelerates rapidly, high-speed aerial manoeuvres? Definitely.

The walk at Calke Abbey, a 300-year-old National Trust property in Derbyshire, passes through a stunning nature reserve. It's a parkland stroll so gentle (1.5 miles) that we hardly raised a puff. Plenty of time, then, to try to spot some wildlife.

Top of the hard-to-see list is the 'globally rare' white-clawed crayfish. We imagined it darting furtively around the 18th Century ponds. Badgers are elusive but their tracks were everywhere. Easier to spot were some rare fungi and a selection from 350 species of beetle. And the hobby.

Top of the can't-miss list is the moorhen. A posse eyed us, hoping in vain for bread.

We climbed a gentle hill to the second stop and made our way to stop number three, on the edge of a wood overflowing with bluebells and birdsong. What was that two-tone call? Maybe a chiffchaff, which flies here from West Africa. Or perhaps a great tit that never goes beyond the next field.

On to stop four - the Old Man of Calke, an oak tree at least 1,000 years old. It burst into life when Ethelred the Unready was on the throne. It's taken every knock our weather can inflict, yet still stands. It's frayed around the edges but green and very much alive.

We left the tree to its second millennium and completed the circuit along a fine line of horse chestnuts. Then it was back to the perfect National Trust ending --cream tea in the cafe, with scones made to a 300-year-old recipe.

On the white lines: The White Cliffs walk makes for a stroll along one of England's most scenic coastal routes

White Cliffs Of Dover, 4 miles

Gazing out to sea, I could just about make out the hazy outline of the French coast. Turning inland, the dark towers of Dover Castle stood out against the skyline.

I had stopped to take in the view from one of Britain's most iconic landmarks. My four-mile walk along the White Cliffs of Dover started at the National Trust Visitors' Centre high above the Eastern Docks. There were no bluebirds, but we had barely set off before the booming announcements from the port were replaced by the cries and screeches of herring gulls.

The well-trodden chalk path leads to the South Foreland Lighthouse, built in 1843. Deep fissures run along the cliff edge. Just feet from me a pretty white fulmar had found an ideal nesting spot hidden away in a small crevice.

The path sweeps down among the gorse and hawthorn to Langdon Hole, where stocky Exmoor ponies, with their thick coats and shaggy manes, graze. I could hear the song of a skylark as it hovered above us. Crouching down to examine a tiny velvety brown flower, I discovered it was a rare early spider orchid, unique to the area.

We climbed steadily to the South Foreland Lighthouse, set amid fields of yellow rape. John, a retired engineer, took us on a brief tour of the lighthouse, leading us up the steep staircase to the top. When we stepped outside, we certainly felt the full force of the wind. The panoramic vista stretches from Dungeness in the west to the Isle of Thanet in the east. Nearer at hand, at St Margaret's Bay, we could see the red-tiled roof of the cottage where Ian Fleming wrote Casino Royale, his first James Bond novel, in the Fifties.

Heading back, we made a halfhour detour down a path called the Langdon Stairs to a black pebble beach. Searchlights placed here during the Second World War illuminated ships entering the harbour.

As we completed our walk, a peregrine swooped in, close enough for us to see its speckled breast through the binoculars.